They're Headed Back To Willow Park If You Remember The Summer Mecca, Don't Forget June 24. 1940s And '50s Will Live Again.

May 18, 2000|by GENEVIEVE MARSHALL, The Morning Call

Stephen Shelbo likes to remember Willow Park in Butztown the way it was during what he considers its heyday -- the 1940s and '50s -- when he ran it with his three brothers.

Seven lifeguards manned a 1 million gallon pool on weekends, hundreds of couples did the polka on Sunday afternoons in the dance pavilion, and children lined up to take train rides around the park. After the park closed on Saturdays in the summer, everyone in the neighborhood came back for a clambake and more fun.

All that is left today of the penny arcade, amusement park rides and dance and picnic pavilions is a weedy, overgrown jungle on Willow Park Road. The 20-acre park closed in 1969 after 38 years in operation.

"It's heartbreaking to see the land the way it is now," said Shelbo, whose father built the park in 1931 on marshland. "I'd rather remember the beautiful flowers my father kept in the gardens and all the family and company picnics."

But about a dozen people who spent summers at the park as children and teen-agers remember it the way the 85-year-old Shelbo does and want to relive those times.

Much to Shelbo's delight, these fans of Willow Park have planned a reunion in June for the thousands of Lehigh Valley residents who swam, danced and played at the park over the years.

"The response from people interested in attending has been amazing," reunion coordinator Tina Miles said. "I think Willow Park represents a more carefree time for a lot of us."

More than 200 tickets have already been sold for the event June 24 at Notre Dame High School in Easton, Miles said. Film of the park will be shown throughout the evening, along with a display of more than four dozen photos.

In the spirit of the "family" picnics he hosted for his listeners at Willow Park in the 1960s, Jolly Joe Timmer will lead his polka band from 4 to 7 p.m. Timmer's performance will be followed by a dance party from 7:30 to 11 p.m., hosted by former WAEB radio personality Gene Kaye, who used to hold sock hops at the park.

Expect the conversation to be filled with talk of the enormous pool, the rides, the food and -- the man who was buried alive in the park in the late '50s.

At least that's what several members of the reunion committee talked about Wednesday night, when they met in Northampton County Councilwoman Ann McHale's back yard to reminisce with Shelbo and his wife, Jo Anne.

"I remember all the fun we had at the pool and how we'd go to the movies in the park at night," Bethlehem Township native and resident Sharon Mullins said. "But I'm never going to forget the man who spent a week in a glass-topped coffin underground as a promotion."

For one ride ticket, people could speak to the man through a pipe stuck in the ground and ask him questions, Mullins said.

McHale was there when they dug up the man.

"He smelled awful," she said.

The councilwoman likes to rhapsodize over the Shelbos' french fries. She was just a teen-ager when she would go ice skating in the winter on the deep end of the Willow Park Pool, which the owners partially filled for that purpose.

"It's going to be great meeting even more people who can get nostalgic with me at the reunion," McHale said.

Miles, who frequented the park as a teen-ager in the '60s, said she had the idea for a reunion after she ran into Barry Weiner, president of the Allentown Federal Credit Union. She immediately recognized him as the boy who used to try to charge children for using a bridge near his house to get to Willow Park.

Weiner told Miles that Daniel Horninger, who brought the park in 1959 from the Shelbos, was still alive and Miles decided to visit him. Horninger, 80, sold the park to Posh Construction Co. in 1970.

"He pulled out all these photos and a video from the 1960s," Miles said. "All he wanted to talk about was the pool and how he regretted ever selling the park. He misses it as much as we do."

Tickets for the Willow Park reunion at Notre Dame High School cost $10 and can be reserved by calling 610-868-7853 or 610-865-9517. Proceeds will benefit Camelot for Kids.